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Pro MERN Stack: Full Stack Web App Development with Mongo, Express, React, and Node
Assemble the complete stack required to build a modern web app using MongoDB (a NoSQL database) and Express (a framework for web application servers), which runs on Node (JavaScript on the server side), complement React very nicely. This book will also cover many other tools that go into building a complete web React Router, React-Bootstrap, Redux, Babel, and webpack.Though the primary focus of Pro MERN Stack is to equip you with all that is required to build a full-fledged web application, a large portion of the book will be devoted to React.The popular MEAN (MongoDB, Express, AngularJS, Node) stack introduced Single Page Apps (SPAs) and front-end Model-View-Controller (MVC) as new and efficient paradigms. But it has its shortcomings such as lack of support for SEO friendly server-side rendering and being too prescriptive by being a framework.Facebook's React is a technology that competes indirectly with AngularJS. It is not a full-fledged MVC framework. It is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces (in some sense the View part). Yet, it is possible to build a web app by replacing AngularJS with React – hence the term MERN stack.What You Will LearnDiscover the details of React, the React Way, and how to get the maximum out of this librarySee the basics of MongoDB, Express, and Node, enough to build a web appWork with other tools complementary to React, including React-Bootstrap and React RouterUse the tools required to build JavaScript based SPAs Tie all the components together to build a complete web app.Who This Book Is ForDevelopers and architects who have prior experience in any web app stack other than the MERN stack will find the book useful to learn about this modern stack. Prior knowledge of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS is required.
540 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 2, 2017
40 people are currently reading
103 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 31, 2018
Whew!!...Finally done.
An amazing and comprehensive book covering one of the most in-demand JavaScript stacks as of now. The author is very detailed and was careful to cover every single aspect of MERN (Mongo, Express, React and Node), at some points I even felt the author was being fastidious, but now at the end, I realize his approach has equipped me with essentially all the knowledge I need to start building fully functional web applications.
I highly recommend this book but there's a small caveat - a good number of the modules and packages used in the book are outdated, and although most of the problems you would face because of this have already been addressed on the Pro MERN Stack Github page, be prepared to scour through pages of documentation for those that weren't.
An amazing and comprehensive book covering one of the most in-demand JavaScript stacks as of now. The author is very detailed and was careful to cover every single aspect of MERN (Mongo, Express, React and Node), at some points I even felt the author was being fastidious, but now at the end, I realize his approach has equipped me with essentially all the knowledge I need to start building fully functional web applications.
I highly recommend this book but there's a small caveat - a good number of the modules and packages used in the book are outdated, and although most of the problems you would face because of this have already been addressed on the Pro MERN Stack Github page, be prepared to scour through pages of documentation for those that weren't.
September 24, 2018
An excellent book that helps those new to the MERN stack understand the whole ecosystem from the ground up. Vasan introduces concepts one at a time without overwhelming you with too much information.
Step by step, the book guides the reader into implementing a simple issue tracker by iteratively expanding on concepts. Initially, you may find some code redundant but later realise that it was intentionally done to highlight why the refactoring shown afterwards is necessary. The end of section quizzes (with answers at the end of chapters) really help crystallise your understanding so you don't end up just copy/pasting code without much regard to what is actually happening.
A deduction of 1 star is given because the book is somewhat outdated in terms of the packages it uses like react-router and webpack. I didn't have too much trouble reading the docs to get it working but best to stick with the versions listed in the pro-mern-stack repo. It would also be nice to have seen how testing is done on node/react which is notably lacking in the book.
Overall, a superb foundational book to learning all things MERN.
Step by step, the book guides the reader into implementing a simple issue tracker by iteratively expanding on concepts. Initially, you may find some code redundant but later realise that it was intentionally done to highlight why the refactoring shown afterwards is necessary. The end of section quizzes (with answers at the end of chapters) really help crystallise your understanding so you don't end up just copy/pasting code without much regard to what is actually happening.
A deduction of 1 star is given because the book is somewhat outdated in terms of the packages it uses like react-router and webpack. I didn't have too much trouble reading the docs to get it working but best to stick with the versions listed in the pro-mern-stack repo. It would also be nice to have seen how testing is done on node/react which is notably lacking in the book.
Overall, a superb foundational book to learning all things MERN.
February 12, 2020
I've certainly learned a lot from spending hours correcting the mistakes in this book, not to mention how well I've learned all the dependencies due to nearly everything in this book being deprecated. I'm also mildly peeved by the author's tendency to say "Go read the [ever changing] documentation for this information." While that is the stereotypical programmer response to any technical question, when it's in a book meant to teach it seems a tad lazy.
The author does a great job of introducing everything in order, and he explains most things well. Unfortunately the editing is sub-par, and the deprecated software which is a fun challenge in the beginning, becomes a nightmare to keep straight by the halfway point in the book.
If you plan to use this book I'm certain you'll learn a lot, but you may want to pay extra close attention to the software versions when installing dependencies. Of course if you go this route then the current API docs won't be able to help you. With that in mind, you'll just have to choose your poison.
3.5 Rounded Down because Chapter 8 tilted me enough to ignore math.
The author does a great job of introducing everything in order, and he explains most things well. Unfortunately the editing is sub-par, and the deprecated software which is a fun challenge in the beginning, becomes a nightmare to keep straight by the halfway point in the book.
If you plan to use this book I'm certain you'll learn a lot, but you may want to pay extra close attention to the software versions when installing dependencies. Of course if you go this route then the current API docs won't be able to help you. With that in mind, you'll just have to choose your poison.
3.5 Rounded Down because Chapter 8 tilted me enough to ignore math.
November 4, 2018
The book is a great option to start learning about the MERN Stack.
It was written in 2016 so, many of the dependencies were deprecated or upgraded since then.
Having some prior knowledge of React and React-Router was really helpful to be able to run the application with the latest versions of the dependencies.
It would be nice if there was a new edition of the book, but with tech it's easy to find your way out by reading the docs of any project.
It was written in 2016 so, many of the dependencies were deprecated or upgraded since then.
Having some prior knowledge of React and React-Router was really helpful to be able to run the application with the latest versions of the dependencies.
It would be nice if there was a new edition of the book, but with tech it's easy to find your way out by reading the docs of any project.
March 26, 2020
I really appreciated the step-by-step nature of this book, to the point of doing things the ok way before doing them right way to create a better base of understanding.
December 16, 2020
It's an OK tutorial on MERN enlisting intermediaries like GraphQL. Everything worked and there's supplementary code online.
September 5, 2017
Simple, Clear and very helpful for beginners who wish to learn MERN stack. The only drawback is, in chapter-8 author is using old version of react-router which is currently out of date, facing some trouble while practicing the sample codes.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews